Bad Guy

In Seoul, and in every other major South Korean city, there are red light districts. Few local folks will admit to their existence. But Kim Ki Duk does. And he does even more. He shows us how they work, how innocent young women get trapped by the "business," how a sense of helplessness descends upon the prostitutes, and how painfully unwelcome and irrelevant their boyfriends, their husbands, their families, become.

To make a film with these themes central may not seem like a winning decision. However, this is award-winning director Kim's territory, and he does with the subject matter what he will. No, it's not pretty, so don't expect it to be. No, it doesn't end up with everything working out happily, because life rarely does, so don't expect that either. No, there is no fine, pat conclusion, because Kim knows better.

I noticed that this film contains bits of celluloid that was picked up off the cutting room floor after Kim's renowned "3-Iron" was made. Expect some unexpected scenes in this regard. Unfortunately, the film is ugly from the beginning, with an innocent young woman (the magnificent actress and Kim favorite Seo Won), taken into prostitution against her will through unlikely circumstance. She is not a willing prostitute and she rebels throughout the plot, much to her dismay. But Kim is so adept at this. Ugliness becomes beautiful, noise turns to stillness, the guilty transform to innocence and the truly innocent remain so. I gasp at such awesome presentation. From Kim, we expect this. Still, he can overdo it. Why, I ask, does Kim always place a woman in mortal peril? Is this a must for his stories, his fables? If so, what is he trying to teach us? Certainly, I hope, more than the fact that "sexploitation" exists in his home country.

"Bad Guy" is a beautiful movie, but I only grant it 7 of 10 because Kim has apparently become obsessed with sexual violence (reference "The Isle," "Coast Guard" and "Address Unknown"). Also, there is just too much emphasis placed on predictable fight scenes. Sure, such scenes can serve a purpose, but by 2002, Kim should know he doesn't need to resort to the horrific presentations he makes them. I appreciate what he is trying to accomplish: a counterpoint to his truly beautiful scenes. But do we really need to be hit over the head with sexual brutality again and again? Perhaps his own culture does and, like what Mean Streets and Taxi Driver offered America in the 70's, Kim is trying to do something similar for South Korean society in the 2000 oughts. We can but hope.

Kim takes risks in showing the world the dark underbelly of contemporary Korean culture. He is to be commended for that. But he is capable of presenting so much more, and that is precisely what this film lacks. Kim needs to stop using shock as his stock in trade, and return to his more sublime talents, such as presenting unlikely heroes and heroines. Most of his viewers are, I am sure, quite over blatant scenes of sex and violence. "We get it, Mr. Kim, thank you, offer us something more. We know you can. Make those scenes MEAN something. That is what made you attractive in the first place; do not forget it."

Quickly, as an aside, if anyone supposes, simply because of the similarity of titles, that "Bad Guy" is similar to "Old Boy" by Park Chan Wook, forget it. These two films are nothing alike, except that they are both good.

This film is just good (not great) and should be received by Kim Ki Duk fans with mixed reactions.

Kim Ki-duk's seventh movie could have been so much more. Romantising forced prostitution is not a very sensible decision. Lets face it the film is meant to be uncomfortable viewing, but by the end it was to much, and the final message put forth seemed a grave mistake - if you force sex on a girl enough she will eventually love you and stay with you forever even if she is still forced to sell herself (now thats shocking)!! As for the film making, in general it was disappointing, a horrible shaky POV shot to show a character's drunkenness - that is lazy film-making, and the use of bad music, added to the blatant romanticism of a serious issue. Some valid attempts made at portraying the nasty realism of the red light district were again undercut by cheesy romance! Although there is no doubt that Kim Ki-duk is a talented filmmaker (see 'Spring, Summer' for a fine example), this film showcases little of this.

"Bad Guy (Nabbeun namja)" is an earlier film of Ki-duk Kim that is probably being released now in the U.S. due to the success of "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom)," but fans of that visually entrancing parable should be warned how very different this exploration of the depths of human nature is.

The style has some similarity in that there is no exposition and we have to connect images that tell a tale of two very different people over time. Context is everything as voyeurism keeps repeating along a sexual spectrum of men and women together -- to romantic or erotic or degrading or lustful or violent, full of obsession or love or hate or longing or disgust, whether in prostitution, a relationship, or rape.

A key context is emotions and degrees, whether by the man or woman, or mutual, or drained of feeling such that I'm not sure love has any meaning in this film. There's a recurring use of Egon Schiele's erotic art to make some kind of comparative point about a continuum of sexual images and their effect on the viewer.

The titular character is reminiscent of Quasimodo of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" fixating on Esmeralda if he were a psychopathic pimp in, I presume, Seoul's lurid red light district and played by the charismatic Jae-hyeon Jo, like an apolitical "Romper Stomper." I did get a little lost where he fit into the hierarchy of the yakuza-like gangster organization that controls the district, how much authority he has, and who was on top of whom to interpret their obsessions. Some of the encounters we see are presumably his limited fantasies as he miraculously recovers from various violently noble efforts to protect and reach out to the object of his affection that reminded me of the ambiguous ending of Jane Campion's "The Piano."

The film explores some of the same territory as the work of Catherine Breillat, but the context seems uneasily different when I'm the only woman in the theater and the director is male, perhaps because the central woman is always an object, even as she pitifully adapts to her various degradations, and even resists being freed from them. All the women in the film treat each other like the men treat them.

With the work of South Korean filmmaker Kim Ki-Duk, the viewer has to accept some very fundamental "flaws" that inherently seem to be a part of his work in a practical sense. The production values are always cheap, the soundtrack music is always tacky, the acting is never more than at the most basic level, there are continuity errors... in a word, his films always seem low budget and as if everything were shot in one take. Also he has almost an insistence on breaching realism and lapsing into his own vague allegory. His characters never follow any kind of real internal logic, but rather act according to the scenario he conceives. All of these factors amount to the reason I don't think I will ever be able to consider any of his films true masterpieces.

That said, in return for accepting these inherent flaws, the viewer is rewarded with a candid, unadulterated look into the creative mind of a very interesting person. Kim Ki-Duk's vision is relentlessly idiosyncratic, but very consistent and pure. Watching his films, you gain direct access into his thoughts. This is not film-making by committee, this is "auteurism" in the truest sense. That in and of itself is such a rarity that his films are worth seeing for this reason alone. And this film, "Bad Guy", is probably the purest, most definitive example of Kim Ki-Duk's vision. All the preoccupations that manifest in his other work are here: The mute, inexpressive protagonist, the seeming obsession with prostitution and the degradation of women in general, and also the director's tendency to eventually lead his characters into an incomprehensible fantasy world. Whether or not the viewer is willing to accept these illogical flights of fancy is purely a matter of taste, but personally i find his work fascinating solely because it is so stubbornly idiosyncratic and fueled by a remarkably pure sense of creative expression.

Another gem from Kim-Ki-Duk, very complex movie in terms of concept and screenplay. Even hard to digest, what is right, what is wrong...lines are blurred.

You'd like to hate the character of Han-Ki very much but you'll be forced to like him. Evoked a mixture of emotions in me...its brutal in its sense, sensual in its sense...a totally different grammar for emotions...

Once again, Kim-Ki-Duk beautifully used silence in the movie and the main character (as usual??) is silent for major part of the movie. This is not everyone's cup-of-tea, so beware if you are thinking of watching it...you may find it bad